Four Reasons Young Americans Should Burn Their Student Loan Papers

Fifty years ago students burned their draft cards to protest an immoral war
against the people of Vietnam. Today it's a different kind of war, immoral in
another way, waged against young Americans of approximately the same age, and
threatening them in a manner that endangers not their lives but their
livelihoods.

There are at least four good reasons why America's young adults— and their
parents—should take up the fight against financial firms who are holding
high-interest student loans that total more
than the nation's credit card debt, and more than the total income of
the poorer half of America.

1. The Protest Has Already Begun

Fifteen former students of for-profit Corinthian Colleges recently announced a debt
strikeagainst the company and its predatory loan practices. The 15
students, members of theDebt Collective initiative
of debt abolisher Rolling Jubilee,
have refused to repay their loans. Corinthian, which has been accused of
false marketing, grade tampering, and recruitment improprieties, and which has
60 percent of its students default on
loans, was sued in
2013 for employing a "predatory scheme" to recruit students.

2. For-Profit Colleges Use Taxpayer Money for False Marketing to Get MORE
Taxpayer Money

Corinthian isn't the only loan predator. Of 15 for-profit colleges investigated
by the Government Accountability Office, 13 were found guilty of deceptive
marketing, with false job and salary guarantees. The 15 companies got a
stunning 86 percent of their funding from the public, in the form of
student loans and grants.

Worse yet, a Senate
report found that they spend about a quarter of their revenue on
marketing, and take 20 percent in profits, while spending only about 17
percent on instruction.

After all that, only 22
percent of students get a degree after six years.

3. Traditional Colleges Aren't Much Better: Students are Treated Like Products
for Profit-Makers

Since the 1980s, the number of administrators at private universities has doubled.

To pay all the administrators, tenure-track teachers have been eliminated, and
underpaid part-timers have taken their places. Adjunct and student teachers,
who made up about 22 percent of
instructional staff in 1969, now make up an estimated 76
percent of instructional staff in higher education, with a median
wage in 2010 of about $2,700 per course, and with little or no benefits.

To further pay for all the administrators, and to pay for amenities like
recreations centers, dining halls, and athletics, tuition has been steadily
increasing, to twelve
times its cost in 1978.

4. College Graduates Have Been Cheated out of Good Jobs

The unemployment rate may be going down, but the available jobs are well
below the skill levels of college-trained adults. According to the New York
Federal Reserve, 44 percent of recent college graduates are
underemployed, holding jobs that are normally held by high school graduates.

College graduates have not recovered from the recession. They took a 19
percent pay cut in the two
years after the recession, and by 2013 they were part of the only age
group withlower
average wages in early 2013 than in 2000. As recently as July
of 2014 the Federal Reserve of San Francisco wrote that recent college
graduates "were and continue to be hit hard."

Progressive Unity

Progressives have no shortage of important causes, but an attack on predatory
student loan policies could be a unifying force for us, particularly if the
power of social networking is employed.

An Apple executive said,
"The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need." But
almost the entirety of corporate profits are being spent on stock
buybacks to enrich executives and shareholders, rather than on job
training.

The proposal for
an America Permanent Fund of $10,000 per household, based on the
corporate debt to society for public research, is about the same, in numbers,
as the $1.16 trillion of student
loan debt. A protest against student loans is a good way to earn the first
dividend.